Andhra Pradesh to relax curfew from 6 am to 6 pm after June 20

Vijayawada/Visakhapatnam With significant improvement in reducing the number of Covid-19 positive cases in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to relax the timing for observing curfew.

At present, curfew is observed from 2 pm till 6 am. During a review meeting held at Amaravati on Friday, Reddy discussed vaccination drives and steps being taken to bring the pandemic under control. The meeting decided to relax the curfew from 6 am to 6 pm after June 20 in all districts barring East Godavari where the existing timings will continue due to the high number of cases..

The meeting decided that shops and business establishments will be allowed to open till 5 pm and the curfew should be implemented strictly from 6 pm to 6 am. The relaxation timings in East Godavari district would remain same from 6 am to 2 pm due to high positivity rate. The government offices will function on regular timings and all the employees should attend offices.

The Chief Minister directed the officials to expedite the works of construction of a new 350-tonne liquid oxygen manufacturing plant so that the State will attain self-sufficiency in availability of medical oxygen.

Reddy said oxygen generated from this plant can be used for industrial purposes in case not required for meeting medical needs. The Chief Minister instructed the officials to set up cryogenic tankers along with PSA oxygen generation units .

3rd wave preparedness

As many as 12,187 oxygen concentrators will reach the State by July 15, and 10,000 D type cylinders by June 24. Steps are being taken to provide oxygen facilities to 50 or more bed hospitals. Another 20 ISO tankers would reach the State by July 5.

The officials informed the Chief Minister that 10 kiloliter oxygen tankers are being made available in hospitals with 100 or above bed hospitals. They said Andhra Pradesh stood second in the country in lowest mortality rate with 0.66% death rate, positivity rate is 5.99%, recovery rate is 95.53% and added that the active cases are reduced to 69,831 cases.

The officials said 2,562 ICU beds are available and added that 13,738 oxygen beds are available at present while there were only 433 on May 17. Over 12,000 general beds are available at present while there were 4,978 on May 14, the officials said, adding that the lowest positivity rate of 2.58% is registered in Kurnool district and it was highest in East Godavari district with 12.25%. The officials said 90.54% of beds were allotted under Arogyasri in network hospitals and 7,056 in COVID care centers. They said 2,584 black fungus cases were registered so far of which 185 people died and added that 976 people were discharged and 1,455 people are being treated..

Deputy Chief Minister Alla Krishna Srinivas, Municipal Administration Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, DGP Goutam Sawang, Covid command control chairman Dr KS Jawahar Reddy, Health Principal Secretary Anil Kumar Singhal, COVID task force committee chairman MT Krishna Babu, Health Secretary M Ravi Chandra, Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar, 104 call center incharge A Babu, APMSIDC VC and MD Vijayarama Raju, Ayush Commissioner V Ramulu and other officials were present.